Duff & Phelps hires New 2ND Capital Young Gun in New York

The appointment comes five months after the departure of the valuation specialist's EMEA team.

Duff & Phelps has hired a Secondaries Investor Young Gun to focus on secondaries advisory, five months after its London-based team departed.

Kevin Nowaskey joins the valuations specialist as a director based in New York, according to two sources familiar with the matter. Nowaskey was most recently a vice-president at niche secondaries firm New 2ND Capital and also has experience at HQ Capital and Partners Group.

He ranked eighth in the Young Guns of Secondaries class of 2017.

It is understood that Nowaskey will work with Dexter Blake, a managing director in the firm’s Morristown office who leads the global secondaries practice.

Four members of Duff & Phelps’ secondaries advisory team – including its EMEA unit led by Dan Nolan – left the firm this year to join Swiss interdealer broker Tradition. Its previous EMEA head Richard Olson had left in June last year to join Lincoln International, a mid-market investment bank.

The sellside secondaries market is becoming increasingly crowded with at least three firms launching advisory capabilities this year. Last week Secondaries Investor reported that Jefferies had become the latest entrant with the hire of two senior executives from Greenhill.

Guggenheim Securities is also set to launch a secondaries business, as Secondaries Investor has reported.

Duff & Phelps did not return a request for comment by press time. A spokesman for New 2ND Capital declined to comment.